Inside Urban Green

New Green Wall System

This new green wall system is from Tournesal Siteworks a company I know very well from long ago when it was known as Planter Technology. My interior plantscaping company in Los Angeles was one of the first in the country to convert to the use of their Natural Spring planters. 

It is the only sub-irrigation planter with some "intelligence"  that you might truly call "self-watering." The vacuum-sensor system can detect moist and dry soil and thus turn the water supply on and off. 

 

The Natural Spring planters are still available but most interior plantscapers use the more versatile (non-decorative) Controlled Watering Insert (CWI), (watch animation) which can be installed inside any type of decorative planter. 

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend these planters to anyone with valuable indoor plants such as specimen Kentia palms, Rhapis palms or Ficus trees for example. 

For many with limited horticultural knowledge these planters are an excellent way to protect their significant indoor plant investment and ensure longevity.

Orange Box Growers

Photos by Maria Finn of the blog City Dirt.

You might not recognize these wooden boxes as remnants of the citrus industry that covered the valleys east of downtown Los Angeles. They used to hold and transport oranges. Thanks to Farmlab, they have returned to use as 'agbins'' to grow vegetables in the city. 

Farmlab has installed some form of sub-irrigation (aka self-watering) in the boxes to enhance their use as vegetable growers. The boxes on legs in the upper photo are for harvesting rainwater, what little there is in Los Angels. How well I know from living there for many years. 

I found this a most interesting repurposed box idea. Surely there are many more yet to be discovered. There are all kinds of boxes and containers used to store and move materials in other industries. All it takes is some creative thinking for us to find them and put them to good use producing food in the city. 

Farmlab is a brainchild of architect Lauren Bon.  

Not a Cornfield artist, Lauren Bon resides in Los Angeles and holds a Masters of Architecture degree from MIT and a BA from Princeton. Ms. Bon is a trustee of the Annenberg Foundation and President of Not Cornfield, LLC. Her recent urban, public and land art projects in the U.S., Hong Kong, Belfast and Northern Ireland, as well as her role as a trustee, make her uniquely poised to build the capacity of the Foundation in the area of site based philanthropy, serving communities through education, civic, health, artistic initiatives and programs. Not a Cornfield art project is being developed through a grant by Annenberg Foundation.

Small Yard Vegetable Garden

An EarthBox Patio Garden is aesthetically pleasing to the eye!

This EarthBox garden is on a deck but it could just as well be a paved surface. I don't know where it is but it could work in any small yard be it suburban or behind a city rowhouse. 

Rooftop Food Production

As you can see, this is a raised bed rooftop garden. Even better would be the use of sub-irrigated grow boxes or buckets instead. 

I believe there is significant potential for community box & bucket gardens and home based businesses. The use of these modern methods of urban food production will lead to the creation of new green collar jobs and small business opportunities. 

Think of sub-irrigated grow boxes & buckets as the solar panels of urban food production. They are portable, flexible and have no need for turned earth. Paved surfaces are just fine for B&B growers. All that's needed is six or more hours of sunlight and access to water. 

Rooftop Wading Pool Garden

Photo by Kym Pokorny from her blog “Dig in with Kym”.

From City Farmer News

Here is yet another method of urban food production that does not require access to turned earth. This garden is on a Portland rooftop and the salad greens are growing in repurposed kiddy wading pools. 

Rather than a fabricated reservoir space as in an EarthBox, the water supply here is contained in a 2 inch bed of vermiculite under the 4 inch soil bed. These planters are not deep enough to grow tomatoes but obviously they work very well for producing salad greens. 

We are limited only by our imaginations. 

Is a Watering School in Your Future?

Perhaps in the future, if you waste water you can go to a watering school instead of paying a fine as many people do for driving tickets. 

Look out. The clay pot cops may discover all the houseplants you have sitting in those water wasting saucers. 

In Atlanta, you can be certified to water your landscape. They have an Outdoor Water Use Registration Program. Huh? 

What it is: The Outdoor Water Use Registration Program, which includes an “awareness quiz,” grants water-conscious gardeners permission to water any grass seed or plants installed in the previous 30 days. The program applies to North Georgians (including metro Atlantans) under a level IV stage of drought. Not sure if this applies to you? Check with your water provider.

When you need it: Whether you’re hiring a crew or doing it yourself, homeowners with newly installed plants, or those aerating or reseeding lawns, must be certified before watering the new garden or lawn. Certification allows you to water for 30 days during a 10-week period, between midnight and 10 a.m.; those with odd-numbered addresses can water on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, while even-numbered addresses may use their irrigation systems Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. During installation, new landscapes may be watered at any time. All types of supplemental irrigation are allowed with the certification —- including installed irrigation systems, drip irrigation, soaker hoses, oscillating and overhead sprinklers.

Read the full article. 

Watering in the Zone - Week 7

Click on the photo for larger sizes on Flickr. 

Added 5 ounces after two weeks. It appears that based on history over the past weeks "the zone" for this plant is between 11 and 16 ounces. 

Plants like nothing better than adequate light, consistency and evenly moist soil. Measured sub-irrigation is a very simple and effective way to accomplish this. 

See the Flickr set for all of the prior photos. Or, see the prior posts here. 

Sub-irrigation (aka Self-watering) is Anything but New

    

Photos from Green-Tech, U.K. 

In the mid '70s I ran an interior plantscaping company in Los Angeles. That was when I discovered sub-irrigation (aka self-watering) planters and systems. This is one of the systems we used. It is called the Mona Plant System (MPS) and was invented in Sweden. Back then, it was already a well-established system in Europe. 

The MONA tank on the left can be installed in any watertight planter as shown in the cross section on the right. The tank holds water poured into the fill tube. The cone in the center creates a soil wick that moves water up into the root zone by capillary action. The soil wick used here is the same technique as used in the EarthBox.

Why You Probably Do Not Know About Subirrigation Benefits

  

  

Various methods of greenhouse sub-irrigation 

The photos above came from a PowerPoint presentation entitled Financial and Practical Considerations of Selecting Zero Runoff Subirrigation Systems. The source of the information is Cornell University. 

You can download it as a PowerPoint presentation or view it in HTML in your browser without the photos. 

Following are the reasons and benefits cited in the presentation for greenhouse growers adopting sub-irrigation over top watering. They are of obvious benefit to consumers growing houseplants and vegetables as well.

EarthBox Entrepreneurs

There is great potential for new small businesses and green collar jobs using sub-irrigated grow boxes and buckets. This is just one small example in Canada. 

WINNERS

Two budding entrepreneurs from Kingston Collegiate and Vocational Institute were recently honoured for their business acumen.

Connor Patterson and Raymond Yan took home the regional prize and provincial third-place awards at the Ontario Ministry of Small Business and Consumer Services High School Business Plan Competition. The awards ceremony was held in Ottawa.

Connor and Raymond were among 10 students recognized for their outstanding business plans. The pair's Earth Box Farm emphasizes growing heirloom tomatoes in an organic environment using Earth Box agriculture technology, which can double yields using less water and fertilizer than conventional gardening.

Jan Dines and Kristina Sutton, business consultants with the Kingston Economic Development Corporation, also attended the awards ceremony, where Connor accepted a cheque for $2,250 that he will share with Raymond.

Both boys are graduates of the ministry's summer company program, which is delivered by the KEDCO Entrepreneurship Centre.